UHL

With the Czech Extraliga adjourned for the Christmas break, the best players will be representing the Czech Republic at the Baltic Cup and the U20 World Junior Championships. A perfect time to update the progress of our monitored prospects.

Congratulations to Petr Cajanek, Libor Pivko and Marek Posmyk (all of Zlin) for representing the Czechs at the Baltic Cup.

Unfortunately for Puncochar and Ondrej Nemec, they were the last cuts from the WJC team, and will have to sit and watch their countrymen go for the “Gold Hat-trick” in Pardubice.New in this update: Marek Chvatal, a smallish defenseman from Trinec who is ranked #6 on HF’s Czech Republic page.Read more»

The cold weather that swept over Scandinavia this week is the perfectclimate for looking at the Elitserien scoring race. It has never beencolder, with no one at the top averaging over a point per game.

The players who were supposed to score have either had rough seasons or havebeen injured. That is the main reason that players such as veterans UlfSöderström of Färjestad and Mikael Wahlberg of MoDo is forming the top duoin league scoring. Granted, they are good playmakers, but the scoring racethis season looks very pale compared to last season when Huselius wasscoring in every rink in Sweden, and Jörgen Jönsson and Mikael Renberg, nowwith the Toronto Maple Leafs, battled to catch up with him.

Jörgen Jönsson, a team mate with Ulf Söderström in Färjestad, had a slowstart but is coming to life as he has now scored 28 points in 32 games. Heshould be over a point per game when the season’s over. Henrik Zetterberg,perhaps the players that most anticipated would take over the torch passedon by Huselius has been living in a mightmare offensively in Timrå. Zetterhas scored only three goals and 14 assists in 31 games, but it seems nobodyin hockey is disappointed with his contribution. It is claimed that he hastaken a more defensive role this season, and because his team is strugglinghe doesn’t get a lot of opportunities to score either. Zetterberg has had alot of success offensively internationally with Team Sweden – he even scoredfour times in a game against the pesky Finnish team in the Sweden HockeyGa Read more»

Once again this year, the best junior hockey players in the world will be ondisplay at the World Junior Hockey Championships and therefore once again,so will the top stars from the Canadian Hockey League.

The final roster for Canada’s National Junior Team was announced recentlyand of the 22 players on the team, 21 of them are Canadian Hockey Leagueplayers. The breakdown of Team Canada: 10 players are from the WesternHockey League, nine players are from the Ontario Hockey League, two playersare from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and there is one player fromthe U.S. college ranks.

The World Junior Hockey Championship will be held from Dec. 25, 2001 toJanuary 4, 2002 in the Czech Republic. Numerous other CHL import players arealso participating in the event on teams from other countries.

All of Team Canada’s games from the World Junior Hockey Championship will bebroadcast live on TSN. Team Canada plays two exhibition games, Dec. 20(against Liberec, a Czech Republic Division 1 team) and on Dec. 22 (againstFinland), before opening the World Junior Hockey Championship tournamentChristmas Day against France.

You can also follow the exploits of Team Canada at www.canadianhockey.ca,which will contain up to date information on the WJHC throughout the event.

WESTERN HOCKEY LEAGUE

There are three games in the WHL Friday night. Prince George (3) plays inVancouver, Kelowna is at Saskatoon and Portland visits Tri-City.

Contrary to popular opinion, Kootenay ICE forward Jarrett Stoll making the 2001-02 edition of the Canadian World Junior Hockey team wasn’t an automatic. Although one would be hard pressed to find the last junior national team veteran who was cut from the following year’s squad, a fait accompli it wasn’t. Still, Stoll wasn’t making any assumptions that he would be a lock whatsoever and would accept any spot available for him. “I’m excited to go and play any role,” said Stoll before the Yorkton native left for the Jr. Nat’s training camp in North York, Ontario. “There’s not very many guys that get a chance to do this so, I’ll take any role they give me, I’ll pack the bags if they want me to.”

It is sufficed to say that Kootenay’s leading point-getter last season won’t have to do any bag packing over the holidays. For the second time in as many seasons, a member of the Kootenay ICE (present or former) will wear the ‘C’ above the red Maple Leaf as captain of the National Junior team. Head Coach Stan Butler designated Stoll for the job at the Canadian Olympic team announcement on the 15th of December.

Of course as with anything to do with hockey in this country, wearing the Maple Leaf ensign on your chest, never mind the captaincy, carries with it responsibility and pressure. Responsibility to represent your country admirably and the accompanying pressures that goes along with it in the chase for gold. It’s an urgency that seems to be mounting after four years without the shiny yellow medal around their necks.